gave him the Thanks of the House accordingly, as followeth:

"Major General Fane; it has been your fortune to bear a conspicuous part in the earliest and latest actions of the peninsula war; and, having now closed your services upon the continent, by re-conducting the whole British cavalry through France, you have, this day, to receive our thanks for your exertions in the great and decisive battle of Orthes.

"In that battle, the enemy, formidably collected, and strongly posted on ground of its own choice, nevertheless, when assailed on all sides by the valour of the allies, was compelled to seek for safety in retreat; but the conqueror had resolved, that their defeat should be also their destruction; and the gallant commander, whose name has since been enabled by his sovereign, for his exploits at Almaraz, pressing hard upon the enemy's retiring march, the British cavalry, under your command, bore down upon his broken battalions, and completed the victory.

"Distinguished, long since, by deeds achieved in Portugal and Spain, you have now obtained fresh trophies, won by your sword in France. Three times, already, you have claimed, and received our thanks; we have thanked you for your gallantry on the days of Roleia and Vimiera, in the glorious stand at Corunna, and in the hard-fought field of Talavera; and I do now also, in the name, and by the command, of the Commons of Great Britain and Ireland, in parliament assembled, deliver to you their unanimous Thanks, for your able and distinguished conduct throughout those operations, which concluded with the entire defeat of the enemy at Orthes, and the occupation of Bourdeax by the allied forces."

Upon which, Major General Fane said:

"Mr. Speaker; I am most sensible of my good fortune, in having been, for the third time, deemed worthy of the thanks of parliament.

"Although I am quite unequal to express, in proper terms, the high sense I entertain of the honours conferred upon me, yet, I trust, that the House will believe that I feel them as I ought."

gave him the Thanks of the House accordingly, as followeth:

"Major-general lord Edward Somer- set; Your name also stands recorded amongst those distinguished officers, whose gallantry was conspicuous in the last great action, which called forth the strength and valour of the British cavalry.

"In defiance of the early scoffs of an insulting enemy, this nation has, during the late continental war, re-established its military character, and vindicated its ancient renown. The nobility of England sent forth its sons to the tented field; and there, trained up under the great commanders who have obtained and dignified the honours of the peerage, they have acted throughout upon the just persuasion, that, in this free country, the willing tribute of respect paid to high rank and birth, can only be secured, by a continued display of the same great qualities which ennobled the founders of their race.

"The profession of arms, which you had gallantly chosen, you have successfully pursued; and, in those provinces of France, where your ancestors, of noblest descent and royal alliance, have, in former ages, fought, conquered, and governed, you have renewed, by your own sword, the claims of your illustrious House to the respect and gratitude of your country. I do, therefore, now, in the name, and by the command, of the Commons of Great Britain and Ireland, in parliament assembled, deliver to you their unanimous thanks, for your able and distinguished conduct throughout the operations which concluded with the entire defeat of the enemy at Orthes, and the occupation of Bourdeaux by the allied forces."

Upon which, Major-General Lord Edward Somerset said:

"Mr. Speaker; Deeply impressed as I am with the high honour which has just been conferred upon me, I feel totally incapable of expressing my gratitude in adequate terms.

"The thanks of this House, which must at all times be received with the most lively sentiments of satisfaction, have been rendered doubly gratifying to me, by the handsome manner in which, you, Sir, have been pleased to express them.

"Commanding British troops, and holding that command under the duke of Wellington, a British general can never fail of supporting the character of the British arms. It is to this favourable circumstance, more than to any merit of my own, that I consider myself indebted for the high distinction which I have this day received.

"Sir, I can only repeat, that I shall ever entertain the highest sense of the honour conferred upon me by this House."

Ordered, nem. con. That what has been now said by Mr. Speaker, in giving the Thanks of this House to major-generals Fane and lord Edward Somerset, together with the answers thereto, be printed in the votes of this day.

presented petitions against the Slave Trade, from Dingwall, in Scotland; from Henley-on-Thames; Droitwich, and Wincanton, from Wicklow, and from several other places. He said, that in presenting these petitions, from the course of the session, nearly the last of that long train of petitions, which might now be safely said, to convey to parliament and to Europe, the genuine, spontaneous, and unanimous opinion of the British nation; he was desirous of saying a few words on the present state of the great question on which that opinion had been thus pronounced. All the petitioners had seen the article in the Treaty with regret and disappointment. Many, among whom he must number himself, had viewed it with feelings which would call for much stronger language; but he was desirous to avoid the revival of every polemical discussion of the subject. He should only guard himself, and those with whom he agreed, from a misconception to which they had been subject. The question, in their view of it, during the negociation at Paris, was not whether humanity, or even justice, was to be imposed on France, but, whether dishonour was to be averted from Great Britain? It was, whether we could be fairly required to restore our colonial conquests, without equivalent, and upon conditions, which, to be consistent with ourselves, we must deem to brand us with the blackest disgrace? We were to restore colonies, all avowedly, and some exclusively, to be converted into the instruments of what we punished in our private subjects, as robbery and murder. This was a humiliation never imposed, in the most disastrous negotiations, upon any European nation. It was never proposed to drive France into the practice of general humanity, by the force or the fear of arms; but to repel this foul dishonour from ourselves, at the risk of that alternative of prolonged warfare, which is implied in every serious, at least, in every earnest, proposal of an article of a treaty; and which one party cannot disavow without openly proclaiming, that the opposite party is the master of the negotiations. The position of the British negotiators at Paris respecting this article was purely defensive. We had only to ward off from ourselves, the ignominious necessity of becoming accomplices in a crime, which our laws had declared to be of the deepest dye, and subjected to the highest penalty. But that vantage ground had been lost, and he only adverted to it for the purpose of self-defence. Much ground still remained, and some had even been gained, since the last discussion of the subject. The unhappy failure in the Treaty had even produced some advantage, by calling forth a general declaration of national sentiment, and arming the noble lord with a more decisive public opinion, than ever a negociator carried into a congress. The principle of our colonial lessons, was itself a great advantage in an equitable discussion of the subject. He agreed with the noble lord, that it was impossible to offer colonies to an independent nation, as the price of humanity. It was as clear an insult to bribe, as to bully a state into the observance of humanity or justice. This was not the manner in which he considered the restitution of the colonies, as connected with the negotiation for the abolition. We had ceded these colonies for no equivalent. We could hot have been deprived of them by the events of war. They were ceded in obedience to just and liberal principles, of general and colonial policy, which he should be the foremost to applaud. They were ceded, that France might have a portion of colonial power, which the system of Europe required that she should possess: that sources of wealth and schools of industry might be opened to her population, and that her government might be strengthened in national opinion; an object too intimately connected with the repose of the world not to be most legitimate, if pursued by legitimate means. But England, by her observance of such liberal policy, acquired a right to call upon France to concur with her in regulating the whole colonial system upon that paramount policy which consisted in justice. If one policy required from England the restitution of colonies, another and a proper policy required from France the abolition of the Slave Trade.

He had been informed, that the venerable Pontiff at the head of the Roman Catholic Church, entertained sentiments on this subject becoming his character and his station, and that Christian religion, which had banished personal slavery from the southern and western portion of Europe, and which is doubtless destined one day to banish that stain and curse of human nature from the world. There was no reason to doubt, but he might be induced to interpose an authority revered by so many nations, and to promulgate the sentence of condemnation, already pronounced by religion, against the infernal crime of man-stealing.

The principle of the Slave Trade had been condemned by every maritime and colonial power in Europe or America but one (Spain), which it was at this moment impossible to name without pain and shame. All who had consented to the abolition at the most undefined period, had, at all events, condemned the principle. On this point, there was the opinion of the whole civilized world against the practice of some states, and the silent dissent of one nation. There never was a question on which there was such a preponderance of authority.

It must not be said, that the personal opinions of the great military sovereigns had no weight, because they had no colonies and little commerce. These states might become maritime and colonial; and, to say nothing of those moral claims, which he earnestly prayed that they might strengthen by the disinterestedness of their policy, they had a direct and important interest in the colonial system, which forms a great and effective part of the balance of power, and of which the stability is interwoven with the habits and accommodations of all Europe.

But of all the authorities lately acquired by the cause of abolition, the most weighty was, beyond comparison, the noble decision of the government of Holland. Certainly, the cheerful and immediate abolition of this Trade, by the government in Europe, most dependent on colonial resources, and properly most influenced by a colonial interest, was an act which deserved the admiration and gratitude of all mankind. He rejoiced that our reconciliation with our ancient friends had been signalized with such an act of atonement and justice; and he was perfectly confident that Holland would soon reap the fruits of her virtue, in the amendment of her colonial administration, which, chiefly from being abandoned to foreign adventurers, had hitherto been the chief blot upon her pure annals and estimable character.

Ordered to lie on the table.

observed, that though he was discouraged by the thinness of the House, and the absence of his Majesty's ministers, yet he could not abstain from offering a very few observations on a subject naturally connected with the present Bill, for the satisfaction of his own feelings, and the discharge of his conscience. Almost every voice in the House, not silenced by legitimate considerations of ministerial reserve, had already been raised on behalf of Poland. He was far from intending to repeat what had been so often and so eloquently urged on that great question: he was rather desirous of confining himself to the manner in which it seemed to him to be connected with the conduct of this kingdom at the present moment. Perhaps, before parliament met again, the hands of government might be tied, and the mouths of every member shut for every purpose of useful discussion. Certainly the deliberations of the approaching Congress must materially affect the fortune of Poland; though from what he had seen and heard of the spirit and feelings of illustrious Poles, he trusted that the decision of no Congress could pronounce her final doom. The moment had arrived in which England must take her part. He wished she had never recognized in any formal act, the partition, still less the destruction, of Poland. To us Poland still legally existed. We had never acknowledged that any part of the Polish territory was subject to a foreign master. France and England had, by a desertion of their duty as guardians of Europe, rendered themselves passively guilty of the first partition. But neither of these great powers had disgraced themselves by active accession or by recognition of the legitimacy of those acts of rapine. Their hands were still unfettered, and they might make some reparation for their original supine ness and treason by the assertion of justice at this moment.—It was to be observed, that the destruction of Poland, no insignificant member of the civilized world, but in extent and population the fourth state of Christendom, had been consummated more than three years, after that period of the first of January, 1792, to which it was the avowed principle of the present negotiations to bring back Europe. It was part of the injustice to be repaired. Even this was not all. Its national existence had been suspended only for ten years. It had revived in 1807, under the denomination of the duchy of Warsaw. As such it had been acknowledged by all the great members of the confederacy, except England, which had not ceased to recognize it as Poland. As the duchy of Warsaw, it still in fact exists; occupied, indeed, militarily, by a foreign army, but politically, by an example of very ambiguous tendency, kept for several months without an acknowledged sovereign or legitimate authority. But, however dangerous such examples might be to the power of sovereigns, and to the attachment of subjects, they had, in this case, the effect of releasing Poland from her fetters, and presenting her fate as a new and perfectly open question. The ministers of Great Britain, had for the first time, to determine, not only whether they would recognize the partition of Old Poland, but whether they will actively concur in the destruction of that New Poland, of which the restoration was the only benefit arising from the late calamities of Europe. It is the most critical moment in our diplomacy in the opinion of those who regard the honour of their country as the highest interest. We are now to decide, whether the name of England is to be dishonoured by participation in these events, and whether the seal of Europe is to be affixed to the greatest triumphant crime which stains the annals of the civilized world.

in addition to Poland, thought it should be stipulated, that the kingdom of Saxony should be returned to its sovereign without being burdened with any new constitution.

The report was then received, and the Bill was ordered to be read a third time to-morrow.